Ramadan Food Basket Campaign - Mosul Iraq 2020

A simple question like, “How are you?” led many orphans to tears when we asked them during our 2020 Ramadan Food Basket campaign in Mosul. This is because of the trauma these orphans have suffered. The ISIS occupation of the city left over 13,000 children orphaned, traumatized, and hungry. Many of these children witnessed the kidnapping or shooting of a parent. And even with the occupation ended, their troubles are far from over. In 2020, the situation became especially dire as the Coronavirus pandemic swept the globe. Several children and their widowed mothers were unable to even leave the home in search of food or provisions.

Yet thanks to our on-the-ground team, we are in a unique position to understand the hardships these children are going through. We have made it our mission not only to feed their stomachs but to also feed their spirits by putting a smile on their faces by the end of the day. Ramadan is a time of hope and charity in the Islamic world. And in Ramadan of 2020, we stepped in with our on-the-ground team to feed Mosul’s poorest and most vulnerable people. Our connections with the local community enabled us to work with the mayor and other city officials to get the most up-to-date information on which families were the neediest.

With a budget of $24559, we ended up providing food to 1,651 families in the poorest slums of the city. These were families made up of orphans and widows. The value of each food basket was $20. This was enough to provide three meals in one day for each person in a family. The items in the food basket were 5kg of rice, 2 liters of oil, 2 cans of cooking paste, 4 packets of Maggi, 3 kg of flour, 1 kilo of beans, 2 kilos of lentils, 3 kg of noodles, 5 kg of sugar, ½ kilo of tea, 2 cans of cheese triangles, 1600 grams of chicken and 1 salt sachet.

We also distributed pamphlets to these families on how to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

We would like to thank the Benevolent Hands team in Iraq for their support in this endeavor as well as all our donors, sponsors, and staff for participating in the success of this initiative.